The State Department has ruled that the anti-communist
paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia is a terrorist
organization, just one day
before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is to visit that country.
The group, known by the Spanish acronym
AUC, has long been affiliated with the military and blamed for thousands
of killings and other human rights abuses
during a 20-year rivalry with narcotics traffickers and leftist guerrillas.
"They claim to stand against kidnapping
and extortion, and then engage in those very practices," State Department
spokesman Philip Reeker said yesterday.
Adding the AUC to the department's list
of foreign terrorist organizations will cut the group off from its assets
in the United States and block access to purchasing
weapons here.
It may also jeopardize the more than
$1 billion in U.S. military backing for Colombian President Andres Pastrana's
Plan Colombia, aimed at defeating the
guerrilla insurgencies, restoring peace and fighting drug production.
Mr. Powell arrives today in Colombia
from Lima, Peru, where he met with hemisphere foreign ministers to adopt
an agreement to strengthen regional
democracies.
The special session of the Organization
of American States, which Mr. Powell is attending on his first South American
trip, is due today to approve the
Inter-American Democratic Charter giving the OAS the power to suspend
member states deemed undemocratic.
In Bogota, Mr. Powell will focus on
Colombia's struggle against drugs and against leftist guerrillas, with
the new listing of the AUC introducing a wild card into the
talks.
"The AUC has carried out numerous acts
of terrorism, including the massacre of hundreds of civilians, the forced
displacement of entire villages, and the
kidnapping of political figures to force recognition of AUC demands,"
Mr. Powell said in a statement released yesterday.
"Last year, AUC members reportedly committed
at least 75 massacres designed to terrorize and intimidate local populations"
and kidnapped hundreds of
civilians including seven Colombian congressional representatives,
the U.S. statement said.
U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson
warned last month in the Colombian news magazine Semana that the AUC might
be designated a terrorist group.
The AUC joined 30 other designated Foreign
Terrorist Organizations on the State Department's list because it had become
part of the drug-producing and
smuggling chain supplying cocaine, heroin and marijuana to U.S. dealers
and addicts, Mr. Reeker said.
The AUC's attacks on Colombian officials
also threaten that South American nation's democracy and therefore threaten
U.S. interests, Mr. Reeker said.
AUC leader Carlos Castano rejected that charge
in an interview with The Washington Times.
"We have never harmed private or state
interests of the international community in Colombia," he said.
The AUC has collaborated with the Colombian
military in fighting guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
known as FARC, and the National
Liberation Army, known as ELN -- both already designated as terrorist
groups by the State Department.
But the AUC went far beyond the army
in killing suspected guerrilla sympathizers.
U.S. Congress members critical of U.S.
military aid to Colombia have said army units that collaborated with the
AUC share some responsibility for its human
rights abuses.